In case you were wondering, some of the parts to make my groovy Rough Riders were sculpted by Rob at Curious Constructs.

Sunday, 30 December 2012

Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus

I finally got
around to finishing a few more miniatures!
This is Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus and his body guards and staff.
He is a Margrave from Praetoria who has brought a commission in the Imperial Guard. Some of
his back story has been explored in a previous fluffy post.

The uniform
represents one of the Hive Guard uniforms of Praetoria and that used by the House
Siganades Life Guard. They are one of, if not the richest families on Praetoria so I
wanted to go for a really bright and unusual look.

First of all
I took the normal Red, Blue and Yellow Praetorian colour scheme and shifted one
colour across to Violet, Green and Orange. Unfortunately I really couldn't get
it to work – the purple jacket and green pants just looked off. So I tried
shifting it half a colour which made Red-Violet, Blue-Green, and Yellow-Orange.
After the first trooper I was pretty confident that it was both wacky enough
and striking for the look I was after.

For Sigenandus
I will be using the Straken rules – as you can see from the pictures he is a complete
war dog. Sigenandus is accompanied by a command squad with a heavy flamer, meltagun, two flamers, and two bodyguards. I will only be bringing him out for games where it will be relevant to
have a Major-General on the field. So mostly big games, or games with an appropriate
storyline, like a raid on the HQ camp.

So here are
the pics:

(I have
also included a fluff section under them if you are interested and/or have time
to kill. I may have gotten carried away with it so I won’t be offended if you
skip it! Some people may also recognise parts of the Major-General speech- just
a bit of ironic fun.)

Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus

Majordomo &
Personal Bodyguard of House Siganades - Dirk Maricho

Rudolfus the Epher
Dragon

Epher Dragon
(Varanus Epherensis), also known as the Praetorian Monitor, is a large species
of carnivorous lizard
found on the continent of Epher on the planet Praetoria. A member of the monitor
lizard family (Varanidae), it is one of the largest living species of lizard, growing
to a maximum length of 5 metres (16 ft) in rare cases and weighing up to around
100 kilograms (220 lb). In the wild it is an incredibly vicious bread of lizard,
however training from birth can mould them into a loyal but possessive guard
pet. Wild Epher Dragon colonies are becoming an increasing problem in the under-hives on Praetoria, leading to Hive Guard dragon hunts.

I just realised that I forgot to paint the rim of the bases black! I guess they are only 99% finished!! Please ignore that bit :) Thanks for checking these out, let me know what you think... now, do you have time for some fluff?

Time Off

“Guardsmen never return home” is how the saying goes,
however in fact it does occasionally happen. The Grand Cruiser Praetoriae
Vindictam was stationed in high orbit around Natal – a hollowed out moon of
Praetoria. As the system's major spaceport and shipyard it is the Praetorian
Navy’s major refitting and resupply station.

During the resupply, the men of the 5th Praetorian (combined arms) Brigade and the 3rd Macharian
Thunder Guard Cavalry Brigade had been granted a month’s leave. While the
sub-system shuttles to Praetoria were cheap, the latest air rationing reforms
meant that only someone on an officers pay could afford the air levy.

Brigadier Weeton, presumably noticing the abundance of
loitering Lasmen, had made the best of the situation and ordered a
Major-General's Review and full Trooping the Colour for each regiment. Col. Ackland agreed that it seemed a good idea so the Thunder Guard regiments joined in too. It had
been scheduled for the new Major-General’s arrival which meant nothing but
polishing and parading for the next three weeks. While most of the men
complained about the never ending drilling, in truth it beat sitting in a hole
on some back-water planet surrounded by blood and death. After all, for the
common Praetorian soldier parades were a familiar comforting embrace. They were
less of a training and ceremonial function than they were an inherent behaviour
- like a dog scratching behind its ear, or a grynx cleaning itself.

“What the freck do you call that Lasman?!” Bellowed Sergeant
Dawson

“The precise and instinctive execution of recognised
military movements by an individual or group in response to commands and or
signals, Sergeant!” replied Simons

The sergeant smirked, “You're going to be a Beastmen General
someday!”

The insults continued and while the training was hard and
unrelenting the Lasmen lapped it up enjoying every minute…

“Get a haircut you Jokaero! Stand up straight Demiurg! And
close your mouth Slann!”

“That drill stinks worse like a Loxatl! And for you punks
that weren’t on Krast, Loxatl is an amphibius quadruped that smells of rancid
milk, rotting egg, mint and Brigadier Weeton’s arse soup on a hot day!”

“With drill like that you shouldn’t be a Praetorian
Guardsman, you should be a Catachan Captain!”

"What are you? A Stryxis?! Bend your arms again and
I’ll break them off and use them as pace sticks."

“What are you? PDF!!”

“The Advancing in Review is FIFTEEN PACES! Can you count to
fifteen or were you schooled on Cadia??!!”

"By the Emperor name, Guardsman, you are as worthless as a FART in power armour!”

***********************************

The Major-General's Review

Finally, the
day of the Major-General's Review & Trooping the Colour came. Around the
passageways of the guard decks of Praetoriae
Vindictam wafted the smell of boot polish, uniform starch, lasgun oil, and
brass polish. The men were bright eyed and eager to catch a glimpse of the new
General.

To all the senior
officers delight, the parade started on time and flowed perfectly. Straight Line
Abreast, Nose to Tail, Pairing Up, Flank
Turn, Mini Sweep, Pinwheel, Full Team Crack, Single File Cross, Figure Eight,
Interlocking Circles….. The Praetorians and the Thunder Guard flawlessly executed
every ceremonial drill manoeuvre in the book as a well-oiled machine. Then came
the moment for the Major-General to mount the podium and address the parade. Even
from the distance, the men could see he was an old man.

“Blind in one
eye, deaf in one ear, left arm augmented at the shoulder, walks with a limp,
bald and unshaven.” Noted Col. Ackland to himself. “Clearly past his prime, but
I wonder if he knows anything about war? Pfft. The Lord Governor in his wisdom
has sent us an old used-up politician. Sure, he may haveled a few scruffs against rioters in the hives, but that isn’t
real war. A rich Margrave. What sort of General is he going to make?” thought
Ackland.

Standing
there in his striking red-violet coat with yellow-orange trim and blue-green
pants –the uniform of House Sigenandus–
the Margrave looked down upon the parade. Now was the moment when he ceased being
a Margrave and commenced his time as a Major-General.

With that thought
he launched into his address; a long and confusing rant on war, death and
mankind. At times what he said boarded on heresy, while during other parts he
appeared a practiced iterator. Was it no more than the depressed deranged
chatter of an old man? Ackland wasn’t sure. Whatever the case, this was the man
that was to lead them all. The 40th Line, the 105th Mechanised
Dragoon, the 63rd Rifles, the 122nd Artillery, the 10th
Armoured, and all of Col. Ackland’s 3rd Brigade of the Macharian
Thunder Guard – not to mention all of the supporting units.

“By the Emperor
Name” thought Ackland, “I hope he is saner then he sounds”.

***********************************

(Really? You really what to know what he said? Well that's OK, I actually wrote that bit first.)

The long and misunderstood ranting of
Major-General Margrave Chretzo Sigenandus

“Destructive and cruel wars, motivated
by fear, greed, and the desire for power, had been common occurrences
throughout human history, as had torture and widespread violence inflicted for
religious and ideological reasons.

Through times of heresy and civil war
humans have suffered more at the hands of each other than through any natural
disaster or by foreign alien foe.

By the 30th millennium, however, the
highly intelligent human mind under the watch of the Emperor had invented not
only the psychic beacon of Terra projecting an astropathic beam 70,000 light
years across the Milky Way Galaxy. But also, immense Ballistic Weapons,
Conversion Beamers, Bombardment Cannons, Turbolasers, Superhuman Primarchs and
Space Marines, Vortex Warheads, Deathstrike Cannons, Virus Bombs, Disruption
Macrocannons, Neural Shredders, Rad
Grenades, and Nova Cannons. -If one weapon could be said to exemplify the
righteous fury of the God-Emperor's wrath, it would be the Nova cannon.
Intelligence in the service of madness!!

Halfway thought the 31st millennium,
at the end of the Horus Heresy, the survivors looked with horror and
incomprehension upon the devastation left behind: some say 10 quintillion human
beings killed and many more maimed and disfigured. Never before had human
madness been so destructive in its effect, so clearly visible. Little did they
know that this was only the beginning.

By the end of the 36th millennium, in
the wake of the Age of Apostasy and the Plague of Unbelief the number of people
who died a violent death at the hand of their fellow humans would rise to more
than one hundred centillion. They died not only through petty wars between
nations, but also through mass exterminations and genocide. Such as the murder
of twenty quintillion "class enemies, spies, and traitors" in Segmentum
Tempestus under the Inquisition, or the unspeakable horrors of the countless
holocaust led by the blessed Grey Knights where whole populations were
exterminated. We only need to watch the daily news pic feeds to realize that
the madness has not abated, that it is continuing into the 41st millennium.

Another aspect of the collective
dysfunction of the human mind is the unprecedented violence that humans are
inflicting on the galaxy - the destruction of oxygen producing forests and
other plant and animal life; ill-treatment of animals on Agri-Worlds; and
poisoning of rivers, oceans, and air. Driven by greed, ignorant of their
connectedness to the whole, humans persist in behaviour that if continued
unchecked, can only result in our own destruction.

The collective manifestations of the
insanity that lies at the heart of the human condition constitute the greater
part of human history. It is to a large extent a history of madness. If the
history of humanity were a Magos Biologis’ clinical case history of a single
human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions, a
pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and
cruelty against his perceived "enemies" -his own unconsciousness
projected outward-, criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals.

Ha.”

(Hepaused for a long while, then when the
silence was almost deafening he finally said)

“So why are we here? What is our
business? War?

War is a mind-set, and all action that
comes out of such a mind-set will either strengthen the enemy, the perceived
evil, or, if the war is won, will create a new enemy, a new evil equal to and
often worse than the one that was defeated. There is a deep interrelatedness
between your state of consciousness and external reality. When you are in the
grip of a mind-set such as "war," your perceptions become extremely
selective as well as distorted. In other words, you will see only what you want
to see and then misinterpret it. You can imagine what kind of action comes out
of such a delusional system. The mind left to itself creates monstrosities.
Look at our urban landscapes and industrial wastelands of Praetoria. No
civilization has ever produced so much ugliness.

No, our business not war, it is life
…and death.

Death is a stripping away of all that
is not you. The secret to life is to "die before you die"--and find
that there is no death. This, the mighty God Emperor himself has shown us.

So, let us voyage out into the stars
not for feeble minded concepts such as war, not to label the xenos, the heretic
and the mutant as enemies but to defy the essence of Chaos by living and to
reap death to all else. We will bring death to the galaxy and in doing so
destroy death itself.

FOR WE ARE MAN! And we are madness! Let us go out and do what man does best."

Yes, three of the torsos are Curious Constructs' Life Guard Torsos on Cadian officer legs. I filed the legs down a bit to get the scale looking right.With a colour scheme like this at least they will stand out :)

Wow, thanks guys. I did mean to write "a bit too long for the routine blog surf" (obviously), but it's probably a big long for blog serfs as well. And Gravis - Thank You for the Life Guard Torsos!! They are just sublime and inspired most of this build.

Absolutely love the models and the fluff, really impressive stuff. You certainly have a knack for writing! I'm a particular fan of the Aquila behind the major generals head, also the colour scheme works very well for me.

Thanks Winterborne, your compliments are very much appreciated. I wasn't sure how Praetorian players world take the unique scheme. I'm a little relived that I haven't been shunned for committing some sort of Praetorian heresy!

Top quality post - in order: the models are brilliant and some lovely photos, especially the toying with focus with the good General's shotgun. The models for the command squad are great - those names and titles look brilliant. I got lost reading the speech as well (in a good way). Smashing stuff sir!

Thanks Scipio! Coming up with the names and positions were great fun. I really think they will do a better job defending the Major-General in battle having cool names like this. Much more preferable than using the 'melta gunner', 'heavy flamer' and 'body guards' as names. As for the speech, apparently Chretzo Sigenandus' mind is not a place you want to explore to much - his conclusions don't always appear to follow any meaningful logic. At least the next time I have to come up with a reason why my Guard are killing Space Marines or allying with Necrons or fighting on the wrong side of the Apocalypse I can be creative with the Major-Generals logic!

Really lovely. Especially love the derogatory references to other regiments. Glorious to think it is an offense to a Praetorian trooper to be compared to a Catachan captain! And the colours are great. Dirty and real.